We coffee people often use the phrase "It's like wine!" when we want to explain something about coffee. But does the comparison between the two luxury foods really hold up? Are there really so many similarities?
In September 2018, I bought the book "Coffee and Wine" by Morten Scholer, pictured above. The author compares the two luxury foods with a precision no one before him has achieved. He uses hundreds of examples to show that while the two products are superficially very similar, if we delve deeper, we will find many more differences than similarities.
This might hurt the coffee people among us a little. But does it hurt the wine people too? I don't think so (yet). The urge to often compare coffee to wine probably comes strongly from the coffee corner.
Recently, I conducted a coffee tasting for amateurs, which is always highly exciting. I tried to mix the most extreme coffees with familiar ones. We had coffees from Brazil, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Central America, various processing methods, and different ages and roast levels. To illustrate how different the coffees are, I said: "If we were drinking wine here, it would probably be a Riesling, a grape juice, an Amarone, a Chardonnay, and a Pinot Noir." There was a chuckle – the allusion to wine jargon was understood.
Would wine people now say: "This wine tasting is like coffee? We're comparing..." – probably not.
There are simple reasons: the majority of connoisseurs have probably already participated in a wine tasting, but not yet a coffee tasting. Many feel more confident with wine than with coffee. And if a coffee tasting has been done, it's very rarely in a form that is even comparable to a wine tasting: as a cupping (because it's the most honest way to analyze coffee), structured and objective.
When I see espresso tastings being used for comparison, we face some insurmountable challenges: espresso must first be well extracted. And then you have to be willing and able to drink several espressos one after another and analyze them – and who enjoys doing that? Before long, your tongue is furry like after a young Barolo, and every subsequent drink tastes only half as good.
Adventurous with wine, conservative with coffee
At the same time, and this is my personal feeling, people are a bit more adventurous with wine than with coffee. Coffee is the intimate ritual, the personal five minutes in the morning that no one can take away from you, let alone dispute. Every coffee drinker knows exactly what they want and need. No discussion.
The situation is quite different in the evening, in a restaurant, as a reward for the day's work, where you gladly rely on the knowledge of the sommeliers or leisurely study the wine list. I often find myself being able to choose from the menu quite quickly, then spending the last two-thirds of the time until ordering engrossed in the wine list. Because it's simply fun and educational.
Coffee menus and wine lists
And the coffee menu? It might say something like "our coffee specialties," which should never be confused with "our specialty coffee." These are two different things, but both sound good. Unfortunately, extensive coffee menus are still far too rare. It's also technically difficult to implement if you stand for freshness – to keep 20 wines fresh, I simply don't open them yet. Aging them a few days longer doesn't hurt them. But aging coffee a few days longer can affect it.
Coffee and wine are different. As coffee people, we can draw on wine to compare sensations, sensory impressions, and interpretations. Likewise, the wine vocabulary also serves us in coffee; we can easily integrate it into coffee language.
However, as soon as it comes to cultivation, the similarities cease. An example? Vines growing on dry, barren, and steep soil have the chance to produce very good growths. Coffee trees growing on dry, barren, and steep soils will die.
Where is the journey heading?
The more cafés in the future dare to offer bolder coffee menus, meaning they emphasize specialty coffee more and coffee specialties less, the greater the potential will be.
The potential for exchange between two products that, at first glance, are so similar yet so different. Sensory perception is the first point of contact; everything after that requires deeper explanations. And just like that, we're in a discussion. So – share knowledge, create bold drink menus, and get started.
A great podcast on this topic comes from Lucia Solis - "a former winemaker turned coffee specialist." Highly recommended!
